Generation of high peak power excimer laser radiation by pulse shortening

Techniques for shortening the pulses of a commercial oscillator-amplifier excimer laser have been investigated. By a combination of a H₂-Raman cell and a saturable absorber dye jet the oscillator pulses are shortened from about 25 ns to typically 1.5 ns. Upon amplification pulses around 3.5 ns with peak powers of more than 100 MW for KrF (248 nm) and 25 MW for XeCl (308 nm) are obtained.